


New Recruits

by imkerfuffled



Series: 62 Things The Avengers Are Not Allowed To Do [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Natasha is pissed off and maybe a little stir crazy, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Skippy's List, i accidentally deleted this so here it is again, rated for brief language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 22:33:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4853045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imkerfuffled/pseuds/imkerfuffled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>2. Natasha is not allowed to interrogate new S.H.I.E.L.D. employees and dispose of the ones she deems unworthy.</p><p>3. Clint is not allowed to continue insisting that is the final step of the interview process to terrified new hires.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I accidentally somehow deleted this, so I'm re-uploading it.

**2\. Natasha is not allowed to interrogate new S.H.I.E.L.D. employees and dispose of the ones she deems unworthy.**

Every year, S.H.I.E.L.D. went through the same process of recruitment as any other top secret government organization. Most new recruits never made it past the first few months out of the Academy, but Coulson hadn’t liked to mention that, when he was alive. He said it scared people away.

“That’s the whole fucking point of telling them,” Fury always replied, “If they can’t handle that, they damn well don’t belong here.”

Natasha was inclined to agree, especially since the majority of those who didn’t make it—through quitting, being fired, or, yes, getting killed—were the ones Natasha liked least. For the most part, she could tolerate these bumbling excuses for agents, but every year, without fail, there was always that one person who made her want to put a little bit more red in her ledger. And this year, that person was Nathaniel Johnson.

Needless to say, Johnson would never make it far as an agent. The son of some big-shot lawyer, he was the kind of person who felt his wealth entitled him to special treatment. Kind of like Stark actually, but unlike Iron Man, Johnson lacked the strength of character to be able—or willing—to fly a nuke through a wormhole, so Natasha didn’t like him.

Normally she could ignore the Agent Johnsons of the new recruits, but not this year. Due to her increased visibility (i.e. any visibility) as part of the Avengers, her opportunities for undercover missions had dropped drastically, which made both Natasha and Fury angry. Fury’s solution was to put her on the roster for rookie training.

Yippee.

He was forcing her to have weekly contact with probationary agents she hated. And then telling her to fight them. For training.

So all in all, it could be worse. She could be prohibited from beating the shit out of them.

On the other hand, briefly hospitalizing Johnson during the third session had gotten her in trouble, so it could have been better.

Natasha would give anything to be back in the field, instead of dealing with the babies of S.H.I.E.L.D. Even though she knew it wasn’t their fault that they were so untrained, she didn’t have the patience to walk them through moves she’d known since she was a child. Add to that their blended attitude of cocky insecurity (once again, kind of like Tony) and their naive incompetence (nothing like Tony), and it was a recipe for disaster. It was only a matter of time before she snapped.

That time came on the sixth week of ~~babysitting~~ training, when Johnson refused to practice a move _that Natasha explicitly ordered him to do because it was a part of training and he’d need to know it in the field_ because, he said, when executed correctly it would involve grabbing her butt, and that was “disrespectful.” Normally, she suspected, he would jump at that kind of opportunity, but he was really just trying to get out of work (and getting his ass kicked by Natasha again). She’d retaliated by flipping him on his back using only his head and her thighs, which of course triggered a hissy fit because she’d already demonstrated how that move could be lethal (on a dummy, not an agent). At some point, Johnson’s handler was called in, and Natasha took no small pleasure from watching her chew the rookie out for disobeying orders. She decided she liked his SO.

After that, the training session was effectively over.

Johnson wandered over to the corner with his metaphorical tail between his legs and started gathering his stuff up, wincing somewhat as he did so. Natasha smirked.

“He’s a right piece of work, isn’t he,” his handler, Agent Murphy, muttered. Natasha gave a grunt of agreement. “Try not to kill him. Fury would have my head.”

“I’ll do my best,” she promised. Sighing, Murphy walked away, muttering about idiots taking her away from work. Natasha watched as she left, then strode purposefully over to the corner where Johnson was just straightening up with his bag over his shoulder.

“Agent, follow me,” she snapped. Johnson spun around with a look of terror on his face. The few other agents left in the training room stared on, too intrigued to look away, but too afraid to say anything.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said quickly, allowing her to shepherd him out the door under the watchful eye of the other new recruits.

She led him through twists and turns in the hallways, in a manner that suggested to Johnson a deliberate attempt to disorient him. He was right, and it worked. The sterile hallways all looked identical, and before long he had no idea where they were.

“Where are we going?” he asked, the first words spoken since they’d left the training room.

“Don’t speak unless I ask you a question.” Agent Romanoff whipped out her phone and jabbed at the transparent numbers before pressing it to her ear. “Barton,” she barked, “I need you in a quinjet pronto.”

“Oh shit,” Clint said, “What did I forget? Tell Hill I already did that thing she thought I didn’t do yesterday.”

“What thing?”

“The thing I didn’t do yesterday. Or today for that matter. But I’m on it.”

“Nevermind,” Natasha rolled her eyes, “Just be there.”

“But I’ve got to—”

“Be there.”

She hung up the phone and continued marching Johnson down the corridor.

* * *

 

Five minutes later, they were flying away from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in a quinjet piloted by Hawkeye, leaving Johnson’s last hope fading into the distance.

“Hey, ‘Tasha, why are we doing this again?” Clint asked warily. He’d seen the look on her face before, usually when she was plotting a murder, and it never meant good news for those involved.

“Liability assessment,” she said, her expression giving nothing away.

Johnson gulped. To him, it sounded like they were dropping him in the middle of fieldwork with no prior warning.

“Right,” Clint nodded, “And what does that mean in this particular case?” He glanced back at the quivering agent that Natasha had shoved into a seat and gave him a sympathetic look. Although, if he’d managed to piss Nat off enough to do… whatever this was… Clint didn’t feel very sorry for him.

Instead of replying, Natasha turned to Johnson. “Why don’t you answer that one?” she said, in the curt voice she used when trying to keep her assassin instincts in check, “And think long and hard about it, because what you say could influence the outcome.”

“Um,” Johnson clutched wide-eyed at the sides of his seat, “It means you’re going to turn the jet around and take me back to headquarters?”

“Wrong answer. Clint, keep flying.”

“Where are we going, anyway?” Clint asked.

“I told you. West.”

“Lots of things are west, ‘Tasha,” he said, “The entire country is west. China’s west if you go far enough. We’re in New York; there’s not much east of us.”

“Just keep flying, Clint. And keep the GPS off.”

“When you said ‘not exactly sanctioned mission,’ exactly _how_ ‘not exactly sanctioned’ does that mean?”

“Just keep flying.”

They fell into a strained silence for the next few minutes, as Natasha sat opposite the rookie agent, staring daggers into his soul. Clint had seen many of her intimidation techniques before, but the Unblinking Stare of Death, as he’d dubbed it, was one of his favorites. She would just sit there, without moving a muscle, and never break eye contact for as long as it took for her victim to snap. He’d seen her do it for hours sometimes.

“Bro, you must have really pissed her off,” he chuckled.

“This bitch is crazy, man, you gotta help me!” Johnson shouted suddenly, no doubt mistaking Clint for a potential ally in the situation.

Natasha instantly snapped out of her glare with a small, rueful smile, as if she’d been waiting for this (which, if Clint knew her at all, she probably had). “Test over,” she said, “Barton, you can land the jet now.”

“What? This was a test?”

“Wow, you’re stupid,” Clint muttered.

“What kind of fucking test is this? No one ever told me about this!”

“How the hell did he pass the Academy?” Clint asked over Johnson’s yelling, as he maneuvered the quinjet to land in a field.

“Rich daddy,” said Natasha.

“Oh,” Clint nodded knowingly, “What, did he think he was gonna be the next Iron Man?”

“Something like that, most likely.”

“Naw, you gotta be a lot hotter than that to be Iron Man, kid,” he told Johnson, who was still whining about how “it’s not fair,” and “you can’t do this!”

“Jesus Christ, grow up,” Clint shouted over the noise of the engine, as the quinjet jolted on its landing.

“No one ever told me about this test,” Johnson griped, “What is it for, anyway?”

“It’s your final,” said Natasha.

Johnson gawked at her. “No,” he cried, violently shaking his head, “No! I’m supposed to go through another two months of training still. This isn’t the academy, you can’t do this!”

“Bro has no clue what’s going on, does he?” Clint whistled to Natasha. He had a pretty good idea what she was doing now.

“See what I meant by ‘liability,’” said Natasha.

“You can’t do this!” the probie yelled again, “Murphy said we’d be tested in two months, not any sooner!”

“You do realize Agent Murphy is part of a shadowy government agency, right?” Clint pointed out, “And that shadowy government agency pretty much exists to lie to the public. So, even if Murphy knew about this, S.H.I.E.L.D. would have no problem lying to you about the date of the field test to make sure you really have what it takes.”

“W-wait—even if?” Johnson stuttered to a halt as all color drained out of his face.

“Bingo,” laughed Clint.

“He’s finally realized this is an actual kidnapping,” Natasha noted as she pulled out her Stark-designed tablet, “I wonder; could that be considered a form of Stockholm Syndrome?”

Clint shrugged.

“Oh my god, you’re going to kill me,” breathed Johnson.

Natasha flashed him her scariest smile. “As much as I’d love to do that, no. We’re simply dropping you off at an undisclosed location and informing you that if you so much as think about setting foot in a S.H.I.E.L.D. building again, I won’t be so lenient then.”

Johnson gulped again.

“This,” she continued, handing him her tablet and a stylus, “is your resignation notice, effective immediately. Sign here.”

He did so quickly, with a shaking finger.

“You’ll be leaving now,” she said as she punched the button to open the quinjet’s hatch, “If I ever see you again, remember you won’t be leaving with all your limbs attached.”

Clint hid a snicker, but Johnson paled even further and looked out the back of the quinjet. “But we’re in the middle of nowhere,” he stammered.

“Excellent observation, Sherlock,” muttered Clint, while Natasha simply said, “Yes we are.”

“But how will I--”

“That’s your problem,” said Natasha, “Now get out before I change my mind about killing you.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**3\. Clint is not allowed to continue insisting that is the final step of the interview process to terrified new hires.**

In the aftermath of the Nathaniel Johnson fiasco, Natasha was suspended for a month and forbidden from being involved in agent training ever again, much to her delight. Clint managed to worm his way out of punishment by claiming plausible deniability (to which Fury replied, “That’s fucking bullshit.”) Besides, S.H.I.E.L.D. needed him for a mission later that week. 

However, Johnson was never rehired, so Natasha couldn’t be happier to be banished to Stark Tower (until, of course, she got bored. But no one wanted to think about what she might get up to when that happened). 

“You’re scary,” Tony told her, “Like, shit-your-pants scary. All this to get rid of one agent?” 

Natasha reminded him that he once bought an entire newspaper and dismantled it for publishing a less-than-favorable article on Pepper, and he shut up about it. 

Meanwhile, Clint returned from his mission in Bosnia, exhausted and jetlagged, but in good spirits. The op had gone well; it was a simple snatch-and-run case involving stolen tech, and Clint had been needed to take out the guards. 

Now, as he strode down the sterile hallways of the Hub, heading to his debriefing, he detected a slight change in the atmosphere. The shift was subtle, almost imperceptible, and if Clint hadn’t been trained to pick up on that sort of thing, he might never have noticed. He saw it in the way senior agents wouldn’t look directly at him, and junior agents fell silent when he passed by. He saw it in the way cadets looked positively terrified when they saw him. 

He waved and one nearly passed out, which was fun, but also slightly disconcerting. 

Clint was not stupid. He knew exactly why everyone was wary of him; they knew he’d been involved in Natasha’s minor breakdown a few weeks earlier, and they knew he’d been gone for most of the time following it, which left a lot of material for rumor-mongering. Secret government agencies, as it turned out, were no more immune to gossip than any other workplace. 

They also probably wanted to know if he and Natasha would pull another stunt like that again. 

A few hours later, he wandered into a break room to get a coffee, where three probie agents were huddled in the corner, whispering conspiratorially together. They hadn’t seen him yet, since Clint was a naturally quiet walker, and the little clique stood half-hidden behind the vending machine. Clint decided to take advantage of the situation. 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were talking about, but Clint just liked eavesdropping. Silently, he slid across the counter, out of their line of sight, and started listening. 

“She was _terrifying,”_ one of them whispered in a voice so deep it almost sounded fake, “I’m glad she’s not doing training anymore.” 

“She said she could kill someone fifty-three ways with a _spoon,”_ hissed another, “Who the hell can do that?” 

It was only Clint’s years of training that kept him falling to the floor laughing. (Their information wasn’t even accurate. Natasha actually knew fifty-five different ways to kill someone with a spoon.) 

“Does anyone even know what happened to Johnson?” the third asked. 

“Yeah, he quit,” said Manly Voice. 

“On the same day Agent Romanoff stopped doing training?” Person Number Three said skeptically, “Do you really believe that?” 

“I heard she went rogue and killed him,” said Person Number Two with a squeak. 

“That’s stupid,” Manly Voice said too loudly, prompting hushing noises from the other two, who Clint decided to call Reasonable Person and Squeaky. 

“Well,” whispered Squeaky, “I also heard Johnson was a neo-nazi spy, and she _had_ to kill him.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” Reasonable Person hissed, “Do you have any idea the background checks we’re put through before we start training?” 

“It’s happened before,” Manly Voice pointed out. 

“Even so, why would they suspend Agent Romanoff for it?” 

“Maybe they wanted to cover up the breach,” said Squeaky, “Or she got injured.” 

“I saw her arguing with Fury the day after Johnson disappeared. She was perfectly fine!” 

_“Shhhhh,_ someone’s coming!” 

As they talked, a stocky woman on the fringes of middle age walked into the break room carrying an empty coffee cup. She stopped short at the door, eyes darting between Clint perched on the counter and the wide eyed trainees on the other side of the vending machine. 

Clint was struck with a brilliant, evil idea. 

“Hi, Agent Murphy,” he smiled, hopping down from the counter. At his hip, out of sight of the rookies, he signed, _“Follow my lead.”_

Only the slightest nod of her head told Clint she understood, though her eyes held innumerable questions. “Hey, Barton,” she said, “How’re you doing?” 

“Good, good,” Clint nodded, “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask; is Romanoff’s probation gonna be a problem? ‘Cause I’d be happy to step in if she won’t be back in time for the rest.” 

The three agents in the corner stiffened, and Agent Murphy glanced their way in suspicion. 

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll see if I can get you cleared for it,” she said, at the same time signing, _“ What the hell are you doing?”_

“It’s a shame about Johnson, though,” Clint continued, while in the corner, Manly, Reasonable, and Squeaky jumped. “I mean, to get through training and the Academy only to be kicked out at your final interview? Gotta be hard, bro.” 

Agent Murphy’s eyes narrowed dangerously. 

“If you ask me, Nat was a little hard on him, but, hey, her word goes. I don’t make the rules.” 

_“Barton,”_ Murphy growled. 

“Wait… Oh shit!” Clint yelled suddenly, spinning around to face the cowering agents behind the vending machine as if he’d never seen them there, “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” 

“Barton, that’s enough.” 

“Right, of course! What was I thinking? There’s no test. Romanoff has nothing to do with it because it doesn’t exist at all. The whole deal with Johnson was just a totally legitimate coincidence. Oops, haha, have a nice day!” 

Clint managed to sprint halfway down the hallway before he burst into laughter.

  



End file.
